If I could chose a prefect day to bring a camera, it would be today. and I forgot my camera. GAAAHHH!!!! Omg today was amazing!!! Ivan´s family, Anxo´s family, and Diego´s family (and their Americans) all went out for an adventure today. We drove way up north for about an hour to go play in the snow! I started noticing all the snow and unzipped my backpack for my camera and it wasn’t there 😦 I left it in my room apparently. So! I´m sure my writing skills can be put to use although. We drove up to this small town in the mountains where lots of hills blanketed in snow are. The mountains in Spain are so majestic, more than any mountains I’ve ever seen really! It felt like a scene from The Lord of the Rings could have been filmed there. These mountains were rocky and jagged too, not just any mountains.

Playing in the snow was really fun, Ivan had a badminton competition that morning, so he couldn´t go until later. So it was me, Elijah, and Sean (the Americans) and Anxo, and Diego (the Spainards) in an epic snowball fight!! Elijah, Sean, and I built this sorta-fort on a hill and got super into the battle. We had pre-made snowballs, strategies, and everything… but the stupid Spainards still won anyway. They have such accuracy!

Afterwards we all piled into our cars again and drove up more mountains for about another hour. During that hour, and really whenever Sean, Elijah, and I were in the car we had philosophical discussions! They included, the importance of education, the deceival of pleasure and power, religion, racism, and the corruption of the industry and the worth of money in the world today. Turns out we were driving to a CAVE! A legit cave! This cave is probably the most awing aspect of nature I´ve ever seen. I found a picture of it google images, but you might as well just look it up on google images yourself. This cave is hands down MASSIVE with Stalagtites and Stalagmites EVERYWHERE. Oh! And still pools, and rivers, and waterfalls. Imagine every corner of your eyesight filled with the view of cave. It´s like the rock-encrusted inside of a dome. It was soooo cool man!

Once I calmed down from the coolness of the cave, we drove down into some other town to eat lunch. It had such a family feel; eating with everyone and all their families. It´s making me realize how similar cultures are through human interaction, in that we all have family and friends. I´ve really bonded with some good people here. At the restaurant, we ordered a meat and cheese platter as an appetizer, a giant steak as the main course, and then this like, fruit and ice cream and flan mixed giant blob of amazingess for dessert. People eat way too much here… goodness, it was hard to walk back over to the car.

Our last activity of the family adventure was driving over to see this abandoned mine and a pretty forest. When we were just starting to hike down this hall to the start of the trail, this GIANT. DOG. just walks up over the hill and kinda scared the crap outta me! I quote Elijah on his reaction,¨That´s not a dog, that´s a frickin oso!¨ Oso translates to Bear. This dog was just a regular golden retriever, but yet the size of a great dane. It had a collar, and there was a cabin nearby so it probably belongs to whomever lives there. This dog was super nice though! He didn´t bark or anything. We decided to call him ¨Amigoso¨ since amigo is friend, oso is bear, and amigoso means friendly. Kinda perfect right? After about 5 minutes on the trail it started raining, so we went back to leon.

Both Elijah and Sean are guitar majors, and they´ve been wanting to play the guitar in Spain for quite some time now. It just so happens that word about Ivan´s sisters´ guitar has broken out. There was a dispute about if Elijah was going to come over or whatever, but the guitar was in the trunk of the car the entire time! Dah! So the adults all decided to chill out in this nearby cafe, while the rest of us youth chill out in this lobby thing. The three of us guitar players each took about a few minutes with the guitar and passed it around between us, pretty cool, until Elijah just hogged it for like an hour… I hate it when guitar majors do that.

When we got back Ivan´s Dad told me I have a half hour to get ready for another PAARRTTAAYYY!! I put on my fancy new green shoes and shirt that I just bought was ready for anything. Ivan and I met up with the guys and we later met up with some chicas! Chicas that aren´t in our group!! Delia´s in our group, although, but she introduced me to all the other chicas. I discovered that all of Leon´s youth and all of the reaaaally pretty girls are all nocturnal. They only come out at night and on the weekends! Makes sense, right? We started walking around trying to figure out where to go, and we ended up just waiting for like a half hour in the square, all confused. I was pretty mad and in a bad mood, because Spanish guys are really immature and annoying too. Adrian (a Spainard) told me that the group is actually at this other place, so he asked if I want to go with him or to the other place, aaand I said the other place with the rest of the group. So I finally found everyone chilling out in this bar, no alcohol though don´t worry. This party was yet another ¨talking to some girl and not actualling partying¨, again. My Spanish friend Patri was told by her crush that he doesn´t like her anymore, and she was a-bawlin. So I comforted her throughout the night. Pretty full day today! Amazing that it´s already been a week.

I found the pictures off of Google images, they are of the Cueva de Valporquero and of the Cantabrian Mountains.